Australia to censor Internet, Republic of China applauds

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AKA Ass-Bandit

The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, said today he would introduce legislation just before next year's elections to force ISPs to block a blacklist of "refused classification" (RC) websites for all Australian internet users.

The blacklist, featuring material such as child sex abuse, sexual violence and instructions on crime, would be compiled using a public complaints mechanism, Government censors and URLs provided by international agencies.

Well that doesn't seem so bad, now does it? Only, there is a problem...

An earlier version of the Government's top-secret list of banned sites was leaked on to the web in March, revealing the scope of the filtering could extend significantly beyond child porn.

About half of the sites on the list were not related to child porn and included a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.

So basically, the Australian government is going to have full control over a blacklist only they can alter, and they can add any website they want to the list, regardless of what the rest of Australia thinks.

Son of Liberty

I'm not on the up and up with the Australian Government... but dont you guys get some sort of Say on this? like a Vote? Or is it just a type of Government that says "Hey Citizens.... Bend over :mischievous:"

Registered Member

This has been a something that comes up in the news every now and then, I think it is bloody ridiculous, if they end up doing it there will be a huge uproar over it. Its gonna be fun seeing all the "This site has been blacklisted by the Australian Government" popping up all the time.... not.

Maybe its just me, but I don't think other first world nations have the 1st Amendment. Someone from Australia can chime in here, but it's my understanding that there are charters in most countries that are considered the "Free World". These charters are created by government stating what rights the citizens have. Correct me if I am wrong, but a government that can give you what you want can also take it away :shake:

The first Amendment of the U.S. Constitution tells the government what they can't do, not the government telling it's citizens what rights they have (then taking them away because they don't like it anymore). Thus why the US government can't legally censor the internet, but the Australian government can.

New Member

To blacklist sites means that people won't have access to them, which is good and bad. It is good because influence breeds actions, and it is bad because of, well, actually I can;t think of anything bad about it.

The state is the parent, the people are the children. The state is there to protect the people from the 'evils' of the world and had done so. If someone sees something it becomes part of their lives, so, if they see someone worshipping the devil over the corpse of a dead cat, then it enters their mind and becomes a possibility. If there is no source there can be no reaction. A world without drugs is a drug free world.

No, the state is there to make sure shit keeps running. We, as fully functioning adults able to determine what we want to see, are more than capable of taking care of ourselves. We don't need the government telling us how we should live our lives.